Oliver with a twist? Hardly.
But served straight up, Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist is a richly satisfying retelling of an oft-told tale with a pair of platinum performances at its center.
No, it doesn't spin Dickens off into revolutionary new realms, as some Polanski purists—fans of the man who brought us Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist and a knack for chameleon cinema—might hope. But if he doesn't reinvent a classic, he retunes it with nearly note-perfect precision.
Creating a gorgeously dank, dust-choked, 19th-century London (a.k.a. Prague), its pasty-faced citizens parched for sunlight, Polanski remains faithful to the narrative of orphaned Oliver (Clark), who escapes a ghastly workhouse run by cruel, callous adults with little sympathy or patience for children (the photo negative of child-worshipping, 21st-century America). Broke and hungry, he's discovered by the cunning, ferret-like Artful Dodger (Harry Eden), who initiates him into a gang of kiddie pickpockets led by that walking rat's nest, Fagin (Kingsley). And even though Oliver, through a fateful (sorry) twist, winds up under the kindly protection of benevolent bookseller Mr. Brownlow (Edward Hardwicke), it's only the start of a tug between street-crawling thugs and a warmhearted caretaker for the boy's very life.
Zigzagging his camera through grimy alleyways, along stairsways, under bridges and across rooftops, Polanski keeps the pace in perpetual motion. If there's a quibble, it's that the relentlessly somber cinematography can be visually draining, as if the film is smothered in darkness (the relatively few bursts of sunlight and color are startling).
Kingsley, unrecognizable behind a scraggly beard, matted hair, rotting teeth and gnarled features, creates a shockingly three-dimensional Fagin whose greedy instincts and manipulations mostly—but not quite—obscure a beating heart, a sliver of warped love for his army of little larcenists, particularly Oliver. Fagin even kisses and caresses his purloined pickings, cooing giddy praise for his "clever, clever dogs." Declining to play PC with Dickens, Polanski retains the anti-Semitic allusions: Fagin's hook nose, Hasidic-like black hat and coat, even a music snippet with an Eastern-European motif, contrasting starkly with Oliver's sheen of near-saintly Christianity.
Pint-sized Clark is sloe-eyed and heartbreaking, ideally cast as a desperate but resourceful urchin at the mercy of an unfeeling society for whom we can root with full tear ducts. Also kudo-worthy is Jamie Foreman, who steams any trace of humanity out of thoroughly ruthless Bill Sykes, the piece's most despicable, irredeemable monster.
Perhaps another Oliver Twist wasn't warranted. All the same, this one is welcome.